News

The stars of the Bill & Ted movies, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, are going to star together again. This time, they will be starring in a Broadway production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot directed by Jamie Lloyd, as part of the 2025-26 season of Atg Theatre in the fall of 2025.

Reeves will play Estragon, while Winter will play Vladimir. They announced the roles in a joint statement: “We’re incredibly excited to be on stage together and work with the great Jamie Lloyd in one of our favorite plays.”

The Jamie Lloyd Company, Atg Productions, Bad Robot Live, and Gavin Kalin Productions collaborated on the production of “Waiting for Godot,” with 101 Productions acting as general manager.

Keanu Reeves & Alex Winter On-Screen Chemistry and History

Reeves and Winter’s on-screen collaboration dates back to 1989 with “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” followed by “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey...

As the Hollywood strikes stretched to Week 23, optimism is high that a deal between signatories and SAG-AFTRA is close and the town can go back to work. That enthusiasm could be felt with all the deal stories that Deadline broke this week, a clear signal of hope.

Not so fast, says Deadline Strike Talk host Billy Ray. Citing examples that range from director Ted Kotcheff changing the death of John Rambo in First Blood to Jackie Robinson retiring rather than the lifelong Dodger accepting a deal to play for the Giants and all that Jimmy Carter accomplished post-White House, Ray implores SAG-AFTRA to remember it isn’t who drew first blood but who sticks the landing. And for actors, that means safeguards against AI.

Joining him as guests this week are Rumman Chowdhury, an expert in AI and machine learning with fellowships and research positions at Harvard, Cambridge and NYU,...

Tubi is offering lots of originals for July, including the thriller “Five Star Murder” on July 28. A concierge and a guest investigate a hotel murder while a storm traps nasty hidden-treasure hunters inside.

Also coming to the streamer, a podcaster investigates his sister’s death in “Deep Web: Murdershow” on July 8. The murder leads him to a site where the highest bidder determines how a victim is killed.

“The Mummy” franchise is available July 1. In the first installment, an adventurer in 1926 Egypt travels to Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead, with a librarian and her older brother. Excited by their discoveries, they accidentally awaken Imhotep, a cursed high priest who was mummified alive. Now, the all-powerful Imhotep must be destroyed before his wrath destroys everything in his path. Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz co-star in the action-packed thriller.

Finally, the cult classic “Big Trouble in Little China” stars Kurt Russell...

Exclusive: Christie McConnell has been appointed to the role of SVP, Development at the Emmy-winning entertainment company, Bungalow Media + Entertainment, and will now oversee development on all of its unscripted programming.

McConnell comes to the company after acting as a freelance consultant to such TV production companies and podcast studios as Boardwalk Pictures, Salt Audio, Made Up Stories and Wild State. She’s most recently developed such series as the Jeremy Renner-fronted Rennervations (Disney+) and Undressed with Kathryn Eisman (Paramount+), also directing and producing both audio and video content for Headspace.

McConnell has also previously held executive roles at All3 Media America, Shine America and Stephen David Entertainment, where she focused on competition and game shows, docuseries, event series and true crime, additionally overseeing unscripted development for broadcast, cable, and Ott services at Radley Studios. Prior to joining Radley, she served as showrunner for the Nashville live after-show,...

Drafthouse Films has acquired three films that it will release theatrically in U.S. theaters followed by digital releases across major streaming platforms.

They include “Mister Organ,” a documentary from journalist and filmmaker David Farrier, whose 2016 film “Tickled” explored the dark underbelly of “competitive endurance tickling,” will be released in theaters this fall. As he turns his camera on another stranger than fiction story, Farrier finds himself caught in an increasingly dangerous game of cat and mouse with a mysterious character who expertly manipulates the lives of anyone who dares to expose his secrets. The film, Produced by Ant Timpson and Firefly Films’ Emma Slade and Alex Reed, was a critical and audience favorite at Fantastic Fest 2022, and has become a box office hit in Farrier’s native New Zealand.

“I am incredibly happy to be working with Drafthouse Films,” said Farrier “Watching this funny, disturbing, and deeply weird documentary...

Evan Rachel Wood will star alongside Josh Gad and Anthony Carrigan in Alex Winter’s murder mystery “The Adults.” Rocket Science will begin sales at Berline’s European Film Market.

“The Adults” concerns siblings (Gad and Wood) struggling in modern-day America when they discover a dead body in their parents’ basement. It will be produced by Winter, Scott Kroopf of Many Rivers Productions, and Russell Hollander. Penned by novelist Michael M.B. Galvin, the film will be executive produced by Connie Tavel. CAA Media Finance, which is arranging financing for the film, will represent domestic sales.

“I’m thrilled to be working with Evan, Josh and Anthony on this darkly comic crime drama,” said Winter, “which takes a sly look at the challenges we all face today trying to survive in the modern world.”

Wood most recently starred as a fictionalized version of ’80s-era Madonna in Roku’s “Weird: The Weird Al Yankovic Story.

Last Year was a big one for actor turned filmmaker Alex Winter. Not only did he make his triumphant return as wannabe rock star William S. Preston, Esquire in the long-awaited comedy sequel Bill & Ted Face the Music, but he also directed two documentaries that saw release in 2020, with the Hollywood child actor expose Showbiz Kids followed by Zappa, which took a deep dive into the life of the icon musician. A moviemaking machine, Alex Winter has now announced his next directorial project with Mass Effect: The Story of YouTube.

Valhalla Entertainment and Trouper Productions have officially commenced production on the upcoming documentary, Mass Effect: The Story Of YouTube. Directed by Alex Winter, the feature documentary takes the viewer on a gripping journey from the humble beginnings of YouTube, starting with its creation in the attic of a pizzeria to its explosion onto the world stage, becoming the largest...

Valhalla Entertainment, Trouper Productions and Zipper Bros. Films have kicked off production on upcoming documentary Mass Effect: The Story of YouTube, Deadline hears.

Directed and produced by Alex Winter, with Gale Anne Hurd and Glen Zipper also on board as producers, Mass Effect will be a gripping, frightening and, at times, hilarious look at the video-streaming platform, examining its humble origins within a pizzeria attic, and how it went on to become the largest media platform in history.

While looking at cultural phenomena like cat videos, the doc will also dig into weighty issues associated with YouTube. Offering access to key players in technology, business, media and politics, it will specifically tackle such subjects as surveillance, algorithmic capitalism, online radicalization, and the spread of fake news.

“I’m very excited to be partnering with Gale Anne Hurd and my long-time producing partner Glen Zipper on this film,...

Alex Winter, who directed the documentary “Zappa” and recently reprised his role in the “Bill & Ted” franchise, has set his next project: a doc about the history of YouTube and the video platform’s impact on society.

“Mass Effect: The Story of YouTube” is Winter’s return to films about the tech space after he got his start in documentaries with 2013’s “Downloaded,” about the rise and fall of Napster, and 2015’s “Deep Web,” a look into the hidden dark web. His new documentary explores the humble beginnings of YouTube in the attic of a pizzeria to its explosion on the world stage; the platform brought in $5 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2020 alone, with more than 30 million music and premium paid subscribers.

The film will also examine YouTube’s role in shaping the cultural and political discourse, examining present issues such as radicalization, surveillance, algorithmic capitalism, the...

Frank Zappa documentary to receive a theatrical release in 2021.

Piece of Magic Entertainment has acquired European distribution rights to Alex Winter’s music documentary Zappa from Great Point Media.

The film about the life of late maverick musician Frank Zappa will receive a theatrical release across Europe from March 2021, excluding the UK, Ireland, German-speaking territories and Poland, where deals have yet to be closed.

The documentary includes access to the Zappa family and archival footage, exploring the private life of the musician who died in 1993, and includes appearances by his widow Gail Zappa and several musical collaborators.

Winter is best...

Zappa is an intimate look into the innovative life and eclectic works of Frank Zappa, the composer. The Beatles, Brian Wilson, and Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd pushed boundaries of what rock could do in the mid-1960s, but Zappa ignored any preconceived compositional restraint. He mixed rock with classical, jazz with chamber, and twelve-tone with Spike Jones. From his 1966 proto-punk, garage band debut, Freak Out, through the immediate experimental turns he took on Lumpy Gravy, We’re Only In it for the Money, and continuing through his career, Zappa’s music sounds unlike any other sonic unit.

Not only was Zappa a unique composer and bandleader, he was a ground-breaking film director, an innovative theatrical presence, and a voice of rebellion in worlds beyond music and the arts. His politics were far ahead of their time, and his critiques of society resonate strongly to this day. A vast majority...

Alex Winter’s “Zappa” is an odd, occasionally jarring documentary, but it wouldn’t make sense for it to be anything else. The film about the iconoclastic musician Frank Zappa sometimes feels like an autobiography from beyond the grave, sometimes playing like a heartfelt tribute and sometimes adopting Zappa’s rhythms and style to be purposefully disorienting. It’s a Zappa-esque concoction — which, of course, is exactly what it ought to be.

The movie was originally scheduled to premiere at South by Southwest in March, but it was pushed back when that festival was canceled. It now opens in theaters and on-demand on Nov. 27 after a special theatrical event on Nov. 23; instead of being the first film in a busy 2020 for Winter that also included directing the HBO documentary “Showbiz Kids” and acting in “Bill & Ted Face the Music,” it’s the last.

It’s also the most hyperkinetic...

"We were loud, we were coarse, and we were strange." Magnolia Pictures has debuted an official trailer for Zappa, the definitive new documentary about guitar god Frank Zappa, made by talented docu filmmaker Alex Winter. The first film "made with the approval and cooperation of the Zappa estate." Zappa offers an exclusive look at the life of the innovative artist and musician through unfettered access to the Zappa family trust and with tons of never-seen-before archival footage. With an impressive score that combines Frank's well known songs with his later classical compositions, Zappa comprehensively chronicles the life and career of an eccentric musical genius. The film also looks at the many other areas where Zappa left a lasting mark, including his political involvement as an advocate against music censorship that even led him to the halls in congress. This is going to be damn good. Here's the first official trailer...

“Bill & Ted Face the Music” has a high-fluff effervescence. It’s about how Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves), those chuckle-brained metal heads who speak like Jeff Spicoli with a thesaurus, have just 77 minutes to travel through time and get the song — from themselves! Because they wrote it already! Whoa!! — that will unite humanity and save reality as we know it. As they trip further and further into the future, they keep meeting older versions of themselves, a variation on the doubling-up-of-identity-through-space-time stunt that the first two “Bill and Ted” films played with, only here it gets a major metaphysical stoned workout. Meanwhile, Bill and Ted’s respective daughters, Thea (Samara Weaving) and Billie (Brigitte Lundy-Paine), who are of course chips off the old blockhead, go back in time to gather a band of musicians that includes Louis Armstrong, Jimi Hendrix, Mozart, and Kid Cudi.

That sounds like...

Updated with Netflix filing motion to dismiss: The two partners behind now-dissolved Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca & Co have filed a libel and trademark infringement lawsuit against Netflix over The Laundromat, the streamer’s Panama Papers movie directed by Steven Soderbergh. They also filed a temporary restraining order to halt the release of the movie.

Netflix on Thursday responded by filing a motion to dismiss.

The complaint, made in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, seeks damages and injunctive relief. According to the suit (read it here), the firm is claiming Netflix’s film “defames and portrays the Plaintiffs as ruthless uncaring lawyers who are involved in money laundering, tax evasion, bribery and/or other criminal conduct.”

“The implications and innuendo converge to cast Plaintiffs in the light of mastermind criminals whose crimes include, but are not limited to, murder, bribery, money laundering and/or corruption.

Steven Soderbergh excels at exploring the complex systems governing modern society with a delicious ironic tone. With “The Laundromat,” that tendency reaches a grandiloquent extreme. The director’s funny, searing look at the Panama Papers scandal unleashes a cavalcade of goofy fourth-wall-breaking explanations about shell companies, corporate tax laws, and offshore accounts. It has a gun-toting Meryl Streep shooting up a fraudulent insurance company, primitive cavemen to explore the origins of supply and demand, and a cameo by Will Forte as “Doomed Gringo #1.” There’s no telling where this movie will go in its quest to shake up a dense subject.

Needless to say, “The Laundromat” stuffs a lot of information into 95 minutes. The slapdash narrative doesn’t always click, and some of the devices are so on-the-nose one can practically hear Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns cackling at their cleverness. At the same time, , so that even the...

Steven Soderbergh‘s Netflix partnership is proving quite fruitful for Hollywood’s fastest-working auteur, who assembles an A-list cast for his latest film, The Laundromat. Starring Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, and Antonio Banderas (only one of whom is doing a weird accent), The Laundromat sees Soderbergh tackling The Panama Papers after his last Netflix film, High Flying Bird, took on the NBA. Watch The […]

The post ‘The Laundromat’ Trailer: Steven Soderbergh Pits Meryl Streep Against Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas Over the Panama Papers appeared first on /Film.

"All I want is for people to understand the human implications." Some may known him as Bill S. Preston, Esq. Others may known him as the director of the acclaimed technology documentaries Downloaded, Deep Web, The Panama Papers, and Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain. His name is Alex Winter (you can follow him on Twitter @Winter), and he's an actor, a writer, a filmmaker, a producer, a journalist, and much more. I have become a big fan of Winter's documentaries over the years, he's one of a few filmmakers who actually understands the internet, and presents it in an intelligent and digestible way. Last year, two of his new documentaries premiered - The Panama Papers, about all the journalists who reported on the Panama Papers leak; and Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain, about the origins and implications of blockchain (aka encrypted digital distributed ledgers), the latest technology fad that's sweeping the world.

HBO will shine a spotlight on children in show business, unveiling Tuesday the feature documentary Showbiz Kids. The film, to be directed a former child actor-turned-director Alex Winter, will be executive produced by The Ringer Films’ Bill Simmons, Trouper Productions’ Winter and Zipper Bros’ Glen Zipper.

The pic will follow the highs and lows of children in show business, featuring interviews and examinations of the lives and careers of some of the most famous former child actors in the world. A 2020 release is being eyed.

“This project is very close to my heart, born of my own experiences in show business, beginning as a child on Broadway,” said Winter, who started his career onstage in The King & I and Peter Pan before eventually achieved cult status co-starring with Keanu Reeves in the Bill & Ted franchise. “Glen Zipper and I are thrilled to be collaborating with Bill Simmons and HBO. I...

Alex Winter’s The Panama Papers is a globetrotting, newsroom-hopping peek inside the multinational process, which ultimately brought together over 100 media organizations in 80 countries under the auspices of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (Icij). That led to the 2016 mass publication of documents from the highly secretive, Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca — which in turn brought down heads of state and business leaders the world over, and cost the lives of at least two reporters affiliated with the leaked trove. I was fortunate enough to catch Winter’s film at this year’s Idfa (in the stunning Tuschinski Theater, […]...

Alex Winter’s The Panama Papers is a globetrotting, newsroom-hopping peek inside the multinational process, which ultimately brought together over 100 media organizations in 80 countries under the auspices of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (Icij). That led to the 2016 mass publication of documents from the highly secretive, Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca — which in turn brought down heads of state and business leaders the world over, and cost the lives of at least two reporters affiliated with the leaked trove. I was fortunate enough to catch Winter’s film at this year’s Idfa (in the stunning Tuschinski Theater, […]...

Amsterdam — At 53, Alex Winter has worn many hats in the entertainment industry, moving from the stage to screen and then finally behind the camera, helming indie oddities such as “Freaked” in 1993 and “Fever” in 1999. Latterly, however, he has proven himself a capable hand with non-fiction, and he arrived at Idfa with his third feature-length doc “The Panama Papers”, following the film’s world premiere at The Hamptons Intl. Film Festival in October.

Shot on an almost as-it-happened basis by Winter and his team, the action starts in 2016, when a (still) anonymous whistle-blower codenamed “John Doe”, voiced in the film by Elijah Wood, contacted German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung with a cache of information relating to financial irregularities involving Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. From there, we see how Doe’s tip-off became a huge global scandal, as the Icij – the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – began chasing down Doe’s leads,...

Last year, the Academy documentary branch had to grapple with a record 170 documentary feature submissions for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar. This year, it’s not so bad: only 166 were entered. The short list of 15 will be announced, along with eight others for the first time on a single date this year: December 17.

All year, branch members have been getting lists of secure online screeners available to watch on the Academy website, increasing in volume until last month, when they received a batch of 77, with more to come. It’s a burden to watch them all, so the ones with the most attention move to the top of the much-watch list. Give the advantage to early box office hits that were made available in the summer such as “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” “Rbg,” and “Three Identical Strangers,” as well as September’s list including critically hailed “Dark Money,...

Last year, the Academy documentary branch had to grapple with a record 170 documentary feature submissions for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar. This year, it’s not so bad: only 166 were entered. The short list of 15 will be announced, along with eight others for the first time on a single date this year: December 17.

All year, branch members have been getting lists of secure online screeners available to watch on the Academy website, increasing in volume until last month, when they received a batch of 77, with more to come. It’s a burden to watch them all, so the ones with the most attention move to the top of the much-watch list. Give the advantage to early box office hits that were made available in the summer such as “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” “Rbg,” and “Three Identical Strangers,” as well as September’s list including critically hailed “Dark Money,...

A whopping 166 documentary features have been submitted to the academy for consideration at the 2019 Oscars. That is down by four from last year’s record 170 submissions. Among these contenders are all of the highest grossing documentaries of the year including “Free Solo,” “Rbg” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

To winnow the entries down to the 15 semi-finalists that will be announced on December 17, the academy is sending monthly packages of the newly eligible documentary feature screeners to all 400 or so members of the documentary branch. While all members are encouraged to watch as many of these as they can, one-fifth of the voters are assigned each title. In late November, each branch member will submit a preferential ballot listing their top 15 choices.

See 2019 Oscars: Foreign-language film entries from A (Afghanistan) to Y (Yemen)

All of these ballots will be collated to determine the 15 semi-finalists. Branch members will then be...

In a year that has seen multiple documentaries find mainstream success, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released the list of 166 docs that have been submitted for Oscar consideration this year.

Among the films on the list are Michael Moore’s anti-Trump polemic “Fahrenheit 11/9,” as well as CNN Films’ Ruth Bader Ginsburg biography “Rbg” and Focus’ Mister Rogers retrospective “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

Other films considered frontrunners include “Three Identical Strangers,” the wild story of triplets who were separated at birth by a bizarre experiment, “Free Solo,” which documents the first ever attempt to climb Yosemite’s El Capitan without any climbing gear, and “Dark Money,” an investigative report into the influence of billionaires on American democracy through the lens of a Montana congressional race.

Also Read: Sorry, Oscar Documentary Voters: Your Workload Just Doubled

The contender field is slightly less than last year’s record field of 170 but does include,...

The Panama Papers, an incendiary data leak of some 11.5 million documents, revealed world leaders, celebrities, and politicians involved in offshore tax evasion and money laundering in 2015.

Former actor and filmmaker Alex Winter gets to the heart of the scandal in “The Panama Papers,” a documentary that played the festival circuit, which will have a limited theatrical run before hitting Epix on Nov. 26.

Narrated by Elijah Wood and executive produced by Academy Award winner Laura Poitras (“Citizenfour”), the doc examines a “river” of off-the-books money dating back to the 1970s that has benefited the wealthiest among us.

See Winter’s efforts in the exclusive first trailer. The film was produced by Glen Zipper, Bungalow Media, and Poitras’ Field of Vision.

Read the full synopsis:

Leaked by an anonymous source to journalists in 2015, The Panama Papers were an explosive collection of 11.5 million documents, exposing the use of secretive offshore companies to enable...

Many actors have survived the intensity of Hollywood fame with second careers, but few have followed a trajectory as fascinating as Alex Winter’s. After skyrocketing to stardom as Bill S. Preston opposite Keanu Reeves in 1989’s “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and its 1991 sequel, Winter grew disillusioned with the movie business. He grew sick of the pressures of the spotlight and, as he would reveal decades later, still contended with trauma of sexual assault experienced in his childhood. But Winter escaped through twin obsessions that would form his career: filmmaking and the internet.

Nearly 25 years after Winter gave up on professional acting, he’s enjoying a new life as a serious documentarian, with movies that untangle some of the thorniest questions surrounding modern technology. Following the Napster-focused “Downloaded” and the dark web portrait “Deep Web,” Winter has completed two new documentaries that reveal the intensity of his obsessions.

I’m a big fan of Robert Patrick, who is best know for his roles in Terminator 2 and The X-Files, so it’s great to see him join Steven Soderbergh’s new film project The Laundromat.

Patrick joins an already impressive cast that includes Gary Oldman, Meryl Streep, Antonio Banderas, David Schwimmer and Will Forte.

The story centers around one of the largest money laundering schemes ever. “The Panama Papers refers to the documents that linked money laundering to politicians and powerful higher-ups such as U.S. President Donald Trump. The documents came to light due to a whistleblower with knowledge of the Mossack Fonseca law firm.”

Schwimmer will take on the role of Matthew Quirk, an attorney who speaks on behalf of one of the insurance companies after 20 elderly passengers die on a boating excursion. “The boating company learned its insurance isn’t the large company it thought it was,...

Shell companies. Off-shore accounts. Hidden tax shelters. All in shady countries with lots of palm trees but not much in the way of legal inspection or surveyance. Over the years, many of us have become familiar, at least in theory, with the nuts and bolts of how wealthy corporations and individuals avoid paying taxes by rendering their profits invisible. But as you watch Alex Winter’s galvanizing documentary “The Panama Papers,” which deals with the revelations contained in one of the most important document dumps of the 21st century, the camera pulls back (metaphorically speaking) to show us what’s really going in with all that hide-your-assets-in-tropical-anonymity dirty business.

It started off as something that criminals did — like, for instance, drug kingpins, who have always needed a legitimate cover to clean and store their mountains of cash. In many ways, they pioneered and set the template for how to conceal profits in tax havens.

In today’s TV News Roundup, Discovery announces upcoming limited series “Deep Planet,” and Epix has greenlit “The Panama Papers.”

Greenlights

Documenting the deepest ocean dives ever before attempted, Discovery has announced “Deep Planet,” a multi-platform limited series event slated to debut in 2019. A collaboration between explorer Victor Vescovo, Triton Submarines and Eyos Expeditions, the event will chronicle a state of the art submersible on the Five Deeps Expedition, as Dr. Alan Jamieson leads a mission to floors of five oceans, including Puerto Rico Trench, South Sandwich Trench, Java Trench, Mariana Trench and Malloy Deep. The special will be filmed by documentary filmmaker Anthony Geffen, along with Atlantic Productions.

Epix has greenlit “The Panama Papers,” an original documentary premiering Nov. 26 at 9 p.m. Et. From director Alex Winter, the film will chronicle the team of journalists behind the largest data leak in history, exposing a hidden network of tax evasion,...

Epix is reteaming with Deep Web helmer Alex Winter for The Panama Papers, an investigative documentary feature from Bungalow Media + Entertainment, Trouper Productions and Zipper Bros. Films, for premiere Monday, November 26 at 9 Pm Et.

The Panama Papers details the unprecedented coordination of journalists from around the world working in secret, at great personal risk, to expose the largest data leak in history: a global corruption scandal involving corrupt power brokers, the uber rich, elected officials, dictators, cartel bosses, athletes and celebrities who had used the Panamanian law firm of Mossack Fonseca to hide their money. The story cracked open a hidden network of tax evasion, fraud, cronyism, bribing government officials, rigging elections, and murder.

Produced by Robert Friedman, Winter and Glen Zipper, The Panama Papers strikes at the heart of the biggest themes of our times; income inequality, whistleblowers and corrupt power-brokers manipulating world governments and big business. Oscar...